In December 1965, St. John's University in Jamaica, New York, abruptly terminated thirty-one professors, most of them teachers of theology or philosophy, without allowing them to finish teaching their fall semester classes, citing their divergence from Church teaching, especially Thomist theology and philosophy.
[2] Similarly, in October 1966, four professors of theology and philosophy at the University of Dayton were accused of teaching that was contrary to the magisterium of the Church.
[4] The Land O'Lakes Statement was drafted by theologian Neil McCluskey at the request of University of Notre Dame president Father Theodore Hesburgh.
"[7] The Land O'Lakes statement was repudiated by Pope John Paul II in 1990 in Ex corde Ecclesiae, the apostolic constitution for Catholic universities.
[8] Nevertheless, the Vatican and the bishops were powerless to reverse the change in legal status that made hundreds of schools independent of the Church.